Selling shares on on index in order to hold them in another...

rob oyle

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I've decided to move the shares I hold in Royal Dutch Shell from the Amsterdam Stock Exchange to London. Primarily, this is in order to avail of dividend reinvestment and to avoid the withholding tax that's applied on Dutch listings. My intention is to sell (and repurchase) the exact same number of shares on the same day.
In planning for the future and knowing that CGT is a self-declaration return, I don't want to realise the loss I've made to date on the Shell shares. Would instead consider this to be an administrative action and while I'll have to swallow the transaction costs (twice), how reasonable is it to consider the purchase price of the shares to be what I paid for the shares when I originally purchased them and not the current price?
I know there are B&B rules around avoidance of CGT gains (where the loss on share sales will not be recognised when the shares are purchased again soon after).
 
I don't want to realise the loss I've made to date on the Shell shares.

Why not?

The only disadvantage I can think of is if you have small realised gains in other shares which you want to absorb with your annual CGT exemption. If you have losses you must use them first. But that is such a small consideration, I don't think you need to go into any complex tax planning scheme.

Brendan
 

That's pretty much it Brendan - the annual allowance is worth (1270*33%) €419 in potential CGT and I was thinking that if I needed to rebalance my investments at some stage this year, I'd still like to utilise the allowance and hold off on recognising a loss until I needed it/sold down my shareholding. I have no gains to utilise against any losses or allowances to date this year.